


doing things right

by couldaughter



Series: when the night is new (the 20's au) [3]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Missing Scene, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 12:14:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15243177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/couldaughter/pseuds/couldaughter
Summary: “It’s not much,” he said, taking Nick’s elbow to help him up the steps. “But there is a bed frame, which puts it ahead of a good few hotels around here.”“If we were still drinking,” Nick replied, wincing as he leant on his stick. “I would definitely drink to that.”





	doing things right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [void_fish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/void_fish/gifts).



> The 'fade to black' scene in Petrograd, at last resurrected, completed, and told from the opposite POV! A miracle of impulse writing, and especially for Jay, who has cheerlead this AU more than literally anyone I know.

The rotting wood of the lintel creaked as Sergei pushed open the front door to the tenement building. The landlord, in true deference to the revolution, refused to redistribute his wealth towards fixing his properties. _I cannot afford to fix all of them_ , said he, when Sergei complained. _Why do you deserve it more than your neighbour ?_  

Not wishing to be shot at dawn, Sergei had learnt to live with his home rotting around him.

“It’s not much,” he said, taking Nick’s elbow to help him up the steps. “But there is a bed frame, which puts it ahead of a good few hotels around here.”

“If we were still drinking,” Nick replied, wincing as he leant on his stick. “I would definitely drink to that.”

Sergei smiled his agreement.

It was nice to have that sense of understanding with someone he was about to - well. All the men from Novokuznetsk that Sergei had -- had _known_ were dead. And even before then, the understanding had never been more than shallow water.

He reached out, at the top of the stairs, and brushed his fingers across the open line of Nick’s throat. “Last chance to leave.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Nick, swallowing. Sergei could feel his throat moving beneath his hand. The throb of his heartbeat. Something inside him came alive.

He pulled Nick through his rooms, past the sorry excuse for a sitting room, past the kitchen, and into the threadbare bedroom he’d been calling his own for several months.

He had, at least, remembered to make the bed that morning, the corners crisp and regulation-neat. He was looking forward to unmaking it.

Nick stood for a moment in the doorway, taking in the bedframe with its thin mattress, the faded stripe of the sheets, something unreadable in his eyes. He still smiled, though, when Sergei laid a hand on his arm.

“Last chance to leave,” he offered, thumb resting in the crook of Nick’s elbow. His skin was cool to the touch, a phantom shiver travelling down Sergei’s fingers at the contact. “It could be a long walk home in this weather.”

“I’m alright here, thank you,” said Nick. His Russian was fairly formal - not unexpected from a foreigner - but he inflected it with a casual, lived-in tone of voice. It was nice, if unusual, to be addressed in that way. Distant, but fond. He set his palm against Sergei’s hip, where his shirt had pulled free of his belt, and brushed a thumb across the bone. Sergei shivered again.

“Well, I am glad to hear that,” said Sergei, tilting his head bedwards. He cast a hand out too, doubling the invitation. “Join me? I hear the nights are cold and harsh in Petrograd this time of year.”

Nick grinned at him, mostly teeth, some charm. He spread his hands wide, palms facing up. “I put myself in your hands, at least for now. It’s a whole new culture, you know.”

“I have some idea,” said Sergei. He rubbed at his side where a long, thin scar sat remnant of that long-gone February. He sat on the bed, springs creaking in a way that only tended towards ominous. “Come here.”

Nick approached, smile firmly in place, and knelt. It was a promise of a good night, Sergei thought.

“How would you like me?” Nick asked. He tilted sideways, resting his cheek against Sergei’s knee. “I’ll do most things, if you ask nicely, although a few of ‘em might cause me trouble in the morning.”

He tapped his leg with a wry smile. Sergei thought of the cane and struck a few ideas from the list that had rapidly formed in his mind.

“Well,” he said, at length, sliding a hand under Nick’s chin, applying pressure. “Since you are already in just the right place, I suppose you could…”

He couldn’t find the right words, somehow. Nick bent his head back, yielding to Sergei’s hand, and licked his lips.

A breath caught in Sergei’s throat, but he thought Nick understood him. He thought Nick might understand him more than anyone, in that moment.

“As you wish,” murmured Nick, fingers reaching for Sergei’s belt, unbuckling and undoing buttons until he brushed against bare skin. Sergei flinched a little at the cold, huffed a laugh. It was silly to be so nervous of a thing he’d done and had done to him easily a few dozen times.

He caught Nick’s hand in his own and cupped it in his palms, blowing gently on the pads of his fingers. It gave him an odd shivery feeling in his chest, half memory, before fading in the face of Nick’s smile.

“You are much too cold to suck cock this evening, sir,” said Sergei, putting on as many airs as would fit. Not many, but just enough for this. “Very rude of you.”

Nick said something incomprehensible - probably something in English, Sergei realised - with a faint smirk, and then rested back on his ankles. “Mouth is still warm, though,” he said, and proved it.

It was difficult to remember clearly, afterwards, the feeling of Nick’s mouth on him mingling with the chilled skin of Nick’s fingers on his hips, digging in with fingernails chewed to the quick. The sounds Nick made as he moved, breathlessly, the sense of triumph as he licked and sucked and drew the same kinds of sounds from Sergei’s own mouth.

He was sure to have bruises in the morning, finger marks pressed ink-dark into his skin. He was surprised to find he didn’t mind the idea, felt his hardness grow in response to the thought. Nick made another sound. Sergei pushed his hips up, slightly, slid further into Nick’s mouth.

Another sound, harsher. Sergei put a hand in Nick’s hair, wound his fingers through the strands.

They didn’t speak any more. Something unnameable was building up inside Sergei, climax approaching alongside a darker, higher cliff he didn’t want to think of. He could almost feel the edge crumbling under his feet. Blood dripped into his eyes.

He shook his head, came back into himself. His stomach was twisting in a familiar way. He tugged lightly where his hand was woven through hair, was rewarded with a strangled gasp and the sight of Nick’s eyes snapping open once more.

Climax came for him almost before he realised it, a wave crashing as he thrust up once more and froze. He hoped he’d managed to give some kind of warning to Nick - he himself hated this last part of the act, having had inconsiderate lovers fail to warn on too many occasions. He’d choked on it more than once, particularly since arriving back in Petrograd. The men here seemed less prone to basic politeness.

Nick swallowed, pulled away with a wet sound that struck Sergei right through.

“Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did,” Nick said, eventually, grinning with one side of his mouth. “Give me a second.”

He sat back, stretched out his bad leg in front of him with a grimace. “I’d forgotten it did that,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s been a while.”

Sergei reached out a hand. “Come to bed.” He hoped he sounded seductive rather than, well, more or less anything else. “It would do your leg good, no doubt.”

Nick took the hand after a few moments, his other hand still pressed into the wounded part of his thigh. Once he had settled on the bed, back against the headboard, he turned, frowning. “You are wearing -- altogether too many clothes,” he commented. “As am I, now I think on it.”

He stripped off his shirt, apparently unaware of Sergei’s eyes on him. Or -- no, that was certainly a wink. Perhaps not quite so unaware. His chest was decently scarred, Sergei thought, and he ran a hand down Nick’s hip without even thinking on it. Nick shut his eyes, shivered for a moment.

His trousers were evidently rather tight, now.

Sergei removed his own shirt with some haste, threw it across the room to the ottoman. His trousers, already undone, slipped off easily and followed the shirt in mere seconds. Nick looked at him like a starving man presented with a czar’s feast.

“Would you like me to --” Sergei gestured towards Nick’s lap.

Nick nodded, somewhat frantically. His fly was undone almost before Sergei could reach it and push his trousers down over his hips, take his underwear down with them.

The immediate fact of Nick’s need was obvious. Sergei hadn’t imagined anyone found quite so much joy on their knees, but to Nick it was apparently more than half as effective as being brought off by hand, his cock hard and leaking.

Sergei licked his own palm thoughtfully. Nick followed the path of his tongue closely, eyes hooded.

When he took Nick in hand, leaning over him on the bed, pressing his shoulders against the headboard, Nick melted. His head bent forward; his shoulders dropped. He hissed, laughed a little, rested his forehead against Sergei’s shoulder. His mouth was close enough that Sergei considered kissing him, thought fleetingly of the welcome press of mouth against mouth, but -- in the morning, Nick would be gone. That might be one good memory too many, the one that drove him solitary and mad.

The process of taking Nick apart was rewarding in the extreme; he coaxed yet more noises out of him, setting a rhythm neither punishing nor leisurely, changing pace often enough that Nick was left chasing climax for rather longer than Sergei himself had done. He seemed to enjoy it, though. Enjoy might even have been an understatement.

Nick exhaled roughly, said something so quietly Sergei couldn’t make it out at all. He paused only for a moment, cupped his free hand under Nick’s chin, tilted his head back.

“What was that?” He asked, gently.

“Please,” Nick whispered. His voice cracked, his hands clenched in the bedsheets, twitching.

Sergei smiled at him, and began again. It was bare minutes before Nick came on, spending against his own stomach. He relaxed then, eyes sliding shut.

Having taken a few moments to appreciate the sight, Sergei fetched a cloth from the sink and cleaned them both, untwisted the sheets and laid the blanket over Nick’s legs. Feeling foolish, something warm rising in his chest, he fetched Nick’s sweater and set it on top of the blanket before sliding in beside him.

Nick blinked his way back awake, then. Sergei had laid down so that they were face to face, a bare six inches of space between them. He didn’t know why he wanted that closeness, but he wouldn’t deny it to himself. He deserved things, now. He _did_.

“Thank you,” said Nick, formal and fond. “A lovely evening, wouldn’t you say.” He yawned happily.

“Oh, yes,” Sergei replied, closing his eyes. “Quite lovely.”

He slept.

**Author's Note:**

> And then they CANONICALLY had some more sex and smoked in bed and had EMOTIONAL FEELINGS, but I am not going to write it on this occasion.
> 
> This may be terrible but I wrote it and therefore I must inflict it on the internet. Possibly I'll edit this at a later date when I'm not DYING OF EMBARRASSMENT.
> 
> Title from 'Four or Five Times' which is from 1927 but god guys, jazz songs about sex are thin on the ground.
> 
> Twitter and tumblr are @dotsayers.


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